cheers infierno for the pointer.. but still no luck.. see below... It should be simple but I think I'm going mad..
Sam
root@node1 [~/tmp]# tar cvX exclude_file -f new_archive.tar 1_dir/
1_dir/
1_dir/1_1_dir/
1_dir/1_1_dir/1_1_file
1_dir/1_file
root@node1 [~/tmp]# more exclude_file
./1_dir/1_file
root@node1 [~/tmp]# tar -tvf new_archive.tar
drwxr-xr-x root/root 0 2005-07-28 12:33:36 1_dir/
drwxr-xr-x root/root 0 2005-07-28 12:34:08 1_dir/1_1_dir/
-rw-r--r-- root/root 2 2005-07-28 12:37:48 1_dir/1_1_dir/1_1_file
-rw-r--r-- root/root 2 2005-07-28 12:37:34 1_dir/1_file
root@node1 [~/tmp]# tar --version
tar (GNU tar) 1.13.25
Copyright (C) 2001 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This program comes with NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
You may redistribute it under the terms of the GNU General Public License;
see the file named COPYING for details.
Written by John Gilmore and Jay Fenlason.
root@node1 [~/tmp]# cat /proc/version
Linux version 2.4.20-021stab028.12.777-enterprise (st@current.eng.sw.ru) (gcc version 2.96 20000731 (Red Hat Linux 7.3 2.96-110)) #1 SMP Fri May 13 15:50:02 MSD 2005